microcosmography means the description of a human being as a microcosm, as in a character sketch. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “microcosmography” is a great word
A detailed representation of a person conceived as a miniature universe, a compressed model of all creation. From microcosm (from Latin microcosmus, from Greek mikros kosmos, meaning "little world") + -graphy (from Greek -graphia, meaning "writing" or "description"). Formed within English by compounding. Unlike a character sketch, which catalogs superficial quirks, or a cosmography, which maps the vast heavens, microcosmography seeks the galaxies in a glance and the tides in a tear. It is the physician tracing the four humors to the four elements, the poet finding a private winter in a heart grown cold, and the portraitist capturing a whole storm of thought behind still eyes—the fragile, profound fiction that in studying one life, we read the schematic for all.
Etymology
From microcosm + -graphy.
noun
- The description of a human being as a microcosm, as in a character sketch.
- A small-scale cosmography
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